Beacon Power

20 MW Flywheel Frequency Regulation Plant

Abstract

Beacon Power will design, build, and operate a utility-scale
20MW flywheel plant at the Humboldt Industrial Park in Hazle
Township, Pennsylvania for the plant owner/operator, Hazle Spindle
LLC The plant will provide frequency regulation services to grid
operator PJM Interconnection. The Beacon Power technology uses
flywheels to recycle energy from the grid in response to changes
in demand and grid frequency. When generated power exceeds load,
the flywheels store the excess energy. When load increases, the
flywheels return the energy to the grid. The flywheel system can
respond nearly instantaneously to an independent system operator’s
control signal at a rate 100 times faster than traditional
generation resources. The system does not burn fuel and has zero
direct emissions. The Beacon Gen4 flywheel is designed to provide
100 kW of output and store 25 kWh of energy. Two hundred flywheels
will be connected in parallel to provide 20 MW in capacity and can
fully respond in less than 4 seconds. The plant can operate at
100% Depth of Discharge with no energy degradation over time and
provide unlimited cycles for most applications. The flywheels are
built to last 20 years or more. Virtually no maintenance is
required in the mechanical portion of the flywheel system.
Flywheel technology has been successfully tested on live grids at
scale power in New York and California. The technology achieved
system availability of over 97 percent, higher than the average
for conventional generators performing frequency regulation. It is
currently deployed at a megawatt scale under New England’s
Alterative Technologies pilot program, and a 20 MW plant in New
York Independent System Operator (ISO) territory in Stephentown
NY.

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